Week 17

17th - 23rd April 2005

Emma's Entry

Evan watching Dillon Donkey

This week was the first week that we didn't see a gain in Evan's weight. In fact he had actually lost 4 ounces when I weighed him. I spoke to the Health Visitor at the clinic and she said that they don't like to see a drop in weight but Evan looked really healthy so they would just see how he was when I go to weight him next week.

This week at the Mother and Baby group they introduced us to Baby Yoga! It was quite fun and Evan seemed to enjoy it at first but then he got hungry and demanded boob halfway through! I couldn't get him to do the really flexible things with his legs like putting his tootsies in his mouth but maybe that was because I was frightened of hurting him. Caroline didn't have a problem with it though when I mentioned it to her :).

We have a new game that we play with Evan now and it really gets him in a fit of the giggles. I sit him on my knees so that he is facing me and I hold his hands - he's showing good back strength now. I then bounce him on my knees as we laugh and pull faces at each other - he loves it!

This was the week of new happenings... He also reached out whilst on his tummy and grabbed a nearby toy. Just need to help him figure out how to start moving next.

Emma

Caroline's Entry

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Evan didn't like his cot at first...

After having spent weeks painting Evan's room while Emma was pregnant Evan finally got to experience it for himself this week! Up until now he had only slept either in the bed with Emma or had little naps in the pram and had never been in his cot!

But the time and money has paid off as he seems to like his room and his cot. Some days are better than others of course and there are days when he just screams when we try to put him down to sleep and he can't calm himself down but most of the time he grizzles a bit and then just falls alseep.

The nice thing is that he seems to like the room itself. We can see him looking at all the pictures on the wall, the pictures on his light, on the curtains - everywhere. When we were decorating I remember telling Emma that going to all this expense and effort was a bit of a waste as it would only really be for our benefit. I didn't think that babies cared much about their room but I was wrong and now I'm really pleased that we made it nice!

... but he likes his cot now :)

So finally, after four months we're now starting to get a little baby-free time to ourselves in the evenings which is nice. I found it difficult in the first few months when we couldn't seem to do anything for more than about 10 minutes without being interrupted. Looking back I think we made mistakes with Evan from the beginning - we didn't try hard enough to establish a routine and so he never really had a proper sleep routine or regular nap times - even feeding has been pretty much done on the fly. It just goes to show, it doesn't matter how much you read up before the baby is born - nothing actually prepares you for the real thing!

Caroline